SARS-CoV-2 stands for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 which is the causative agent of spreading coronavirus disease 2019 that is known as COVID-19 pandemic, the disease leads to severe acute respiratory illness. Matrix metalloproteinases- 9 (MMP-9) plays several important physiological functions. This enzyme could also be implicated in the "cytokine storm" in some way, which may represent one of the possible scianrios during coronavirus infection, in addition to its role in the mechanism of lung fibrosis on molecular basis.. The tissue inhibitors of metalloproteinase (TIMPs) are well characterized for controlling the activity of MMPs in extracellular matrix remodeling. They also considered as signaling molecules analogous to cytokine activities in the sense of impact on a variety of biological processes; this study aimed to investigate the link between each of matrix metalloproteinase-9 (MMP-9) and tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinase-1 (TIMP-1), and COVID19 disease. A total of 58 COVID-19 patients and 30 apparently healthy adults were enrolled in this study. The ORF1ab, E. and N genes of SARS-CoV-2 were detected using Multiplex real-time PCR, while the ELISA technique was used to estimate the level of serum matrix metalloproteinase-9 (MMP-9), tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinase-1 (TIMP-1), and CRP. The study results demonstrated higher concentrations of matrix metalloproteinase-9 (MMP-9) in COVID-19 patients compared with controls, with non-significant differences obtained. Unlike, tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinase-1 (TIMP-1), showed considerably higher levels in the patients group than in controls, with high significant differences according to the data statistical analysis (p≤0.001). In a conclusion, the rising trend of TIMP-1 in COVID patients could be promising to suggest serum tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinase-1 (TIMP-1) as an applicable biomarker in the diagnosis of COVID‐19.
This work studies the role of serum apelin-36 and Glutathione S-transferases (GST) activity in association with the hormonal, metabolic profiles and their link to the risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) in healthy and patients' ladies with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). A total of fifty-four (PCOS) patients and thirty-one healthy woman as a control have been studied. The PCOS patients were subdivided on the basis of body-mass-index (BMI), into 2-subgroups (the first group was obese-PCOS with BMI ≥ 30 and the second group was non-obese PCOS MBI<30). Fasting-insulin-levels and Lipid-profile, Homeostatic-model assessment-of-insulin-resistance (HOMA-IR), follicle-stimulating-hormone (FSH), luteinizing-hormone (LH), testosterone and
... Show MoreThe effect of air injection angle on the performance of airlift pump used for water pumping has been studied analytically and experimentally. An airlift pump of dimensions 42mm diameter and 2200 mm length with conventional and modified air injection device was considered. A modification on conventional injection device (normal air-jacket type) was carried out by changing injection angle from 90 (for conventional) to 45 and 22.5 (for modified). Continuity and one-dimensional momentum balance for the flow field with basic principle of two-phase flow and expressions of slip ratio and friction factor as function of flow rates were formulated. The analytical and experimental investigations were carried out f
... Show MoreTo obtain the approximate solution to Riccati matrix differential equations, a new variational iteration approach was proposed, which is suggested to improve the accuracy and increase the convergence rate of the approximate solutons to the exact solution. This technique was found to give very accurate results in a few number of iterations. In this paper, the modified approaches were derived to give modified solutions of proposed and used and the convergence analysis to the exact solution of the derived sequence of approximate solutions is also stated and proved. Two examples were also solved, which shows the reliability and applicability of the proposed approach.
Spatial data observed on a group of areal units is common in scientific applications. The usual hierarchical approach for modeling this kind of dataset is to introduce a spatial random effect with an autoregressive prior. However, the usual Markov chain Monte Carlo scheme for this hierarchical framework requires the spatial effects to be sampled from their full conditional posteriors one-by-one resulting in poor mixing. More importantly, it makes the model computationally inefficient for datasets with large number of units. In this article, we propose a Bayesian approach that uses the spectral structure of the adjacency to construct a low-rank expansion for modeling spatial dependence. We propose a pair of computationally efficient estimati
... Show MoreThis paper focused on the stone matrix asphalt (SMA) technology that was developed essentially to guard against rutting distress. For this procedure, fibers play a racy role in stabilizing and preventing the drain down problem caused by the necessity of high binder content coupled with their strengthening effect. A set of specimens with cylindrical and slab shapes were fabricated by inclusions jute, polyester, and carbon fibers. For each type, three contents of 0.25%, 0.5%, and 0.75% by weight of mixture were added by lengths of 5, 7.5, and 10 mm. The prepared mixtures were tested to gain the essential pertained parameters discriminated by the values of drain down, Marshall quotient, rut depth, and dynamic stability. It
... Show MoreThe aim of this study is to investigate the existence of some heavy metals (lead, cadmium, chromium) in colored plastic table dishes and study the migration of these metals to the food meals and the affecting factors in migration , such as storage period and food temperature. Six kinds of colored plastic table dishes were collected from Baghdad markets. The heavy metals in table dishes and in the prepared food meals put in them were estimated using atomic absorption spectrophotometer (Shimadzu A5000). The results indicated the existence of lead in all samples (1.61_1.00 mg/ kg) and chromium in three samples (0.85_0.97 mg/ kg) while other samples are free of chromium, and cadmium. Investigating the migration of these metals to food at dif
... Show MoreThe current study aims to determine the prevalence of Trichomonas vaginalis and Candida spp., and also to identify Candida parapsilosis and some virulence genes. It was conducted in Bint Al-Hoda Hospital of Maternity and Children in Thi-Qar province, south of Iraq for the period from the beginning of January to the end of December 2020. Two hundred and fifty samples were collected from the female genital tract for women whose age ranged between 17-50 years. Microscopic, traditional and molecular tests were used in the sample examination. The results recorded 12 (4.8%) samples infected with T. vaginalis parasite, whereas 130 (52%) samples showed Candida yeast distributed as follows: 75 (30 %) <
... Show MoreThe ligand 4-(2-aminmo-5-nitro-phenylazo)-1,5-dimethyl-2-phenyl-1,2-dihydro-pyrazol-3-one derived from 4-aminoantipyrine and 4-nitroaniline was synthesized. The synthesized ligand was characterized by 1HNMR, FT-IR, UV-Vis spectra and (C.H.N) analysis. Complexes of (YIII and LaIII ) with the ligand were prepared in aqueous ethanol with a 1:2 M:L ratio and at optimum pH. The prepared complexes were characterized by using flame atomic absorption, FT-IR, UV-Vis spectra,(C.H.N) analysis and conductivity measurement. The stoichiometry of complexes was studied by the mole ratio and job methods. A concentration range (1×10-4 - 3×10-4 M) obeyed Beer's law, the complex solutions show high values of molar absorption. On the basis of physicochemical
... Show More